Table of Contents

National Judicial Reporting Program, 1988 (ICPSR 9449)

Principal Investigator(s):
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Summary:

This data collection tabulates the number of persons
convicted of felonies in state courts and describes the sentences
these individuals received. Data were collected from state courts and
state prosecutors in 100 counties of the United States. The collection
contains sociodemographic information such as age, race, and sex of
the felon. Types of offenses committed include homicide, rape, and
robbery. Adjudication variables referring to the process between
arrest and sentencing are also a part of this dataset. Data can be
analyzed on a national level or by the individual counties.

This data collection tabulates the number of persons
convicted of felonies in state courts and describes the sentences
these individuals received. Data were collected from state courts and
state prosecutors in 100 counties of the United States. The collection
contains sociodemographic information such as age, race, and sex of
the felon. Types of offenses committed include homicide, rape, and
robbery. Adjudication variables referring to the process between
arrest and sentencing are also a part of this dataset. Data can be
analyzed on a national level or by the individual counties.

Guidelines for Applying for Restricted Data

Before you begin an application you will need the following information to complete the form

General Requirements:

appointment at research institution; appointment must be under the jurisdiction of the receiving institution

degree requirements (possibly doctorate)

Must be submitted:

project description

IRB approval

approved security plan

roster of research and IT staff who can access or view the data or computer where data are hosted.

confidentiality pledges for all people on roster

Some require:

CV's

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Any public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Judicial Reporting Program, 1988. ICPSR09449-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2012-12-07. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09449.v2

Users wishing to reconstruct figures in the Bureau of
Justice Statistics report based on these data will need to use UNIFORM
CRIME REPORTING PROGRAM DATA [UNITED STATES]: DETAILED ARREST AND
OFFENSE DATA FOR 321 COUNTIES, 1988 (ICPSR 9470).

Conducted by United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

Methodology

Sample:
A two-stage stratified cluster sampling design was
employed. At the first stage, 300 counties were selected from the
3,109 total counties in the nation. At the second stage, a systematic
sample of felons sentenced for murder/nonnegligent manslaughter, rape,
robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, felony larceny/motor vehicle
theft, drug trafficking, and other offenses was selected from each
county's official records.

Data Source:

official court records

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1991-05-03

Version History:

2012-12-07 All parts are being moved to restricted access and will be available only using the restricted access procedures.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

1997-05-16 Minor corrections were made to the codebook
for this collection.

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